Kelly Daughtry falsely accuses Brad Knott of working as ‘Biden's lawyer’

A Republican congressional candidate’s political advertisement shows her primary opponent shaking hands with Joe Biden, saying that he worked for the Democratic president.

Kelly Daughtry and Brad Knott are competing in a May 14 runoff for the Republican nomination in North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District, which covers parts of the state’s greater Research Triangle area. The race to represent the district has become about which candidate is the most conservative, with Knott and Daughtry accusing each other of holding secret liberal beliefs.

In a campaign ad for Daughtry, black and white images show people crowded near a fence line as a narrator declares that the border is in crisis. Then, the narrator references Knott’s work as a federal prosecutor, pointing to a segment of his time in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

"And where was never-Trumper Brad Knott?" a narrator asks. "Working for Joe Biden’s Department of Justice. That’s right, Brad Knott was a lawyer for Joe Biden."

The ad then shows an image of Knott shaking hands with Biden with text that says: "Don’t let Biden’s lawyer off the hook."

Knott says the image of him shaking hands with Biden is fake, and his campaign has already responded to some of Daughtry’s claims in an ad of its own.

In response to the claim that Knott is a "never-Trumper" — a name for moderate conservatives who oppose Republican former President Donald Trump —  Knott points out that he’s endorsed by Trump. In response to the image of Knott and Biden together, Knott’s ad says the image was doctored — revealing a photograph of Knott shaking hands with a Sampson County sheriff’s deputy.

But did Knott really work as "Biden’s lawyer," as Daughtry claimed?

No. Biden didn’t hire him. Biden didn’t appoint him. And Knott never reported directly to Biden. Knott was hired years ago to work in North Carolina for the federal government in a role that’s considered apolitical. The ad greatly exaggerates the connection between the White House and assistant U.S. attorneys. 

From March 2016 until November 2023, Knott worked as an assistant U.S. attorney. Assistant U.S. attorneys are not political appointees, but they often answer to people who are appointed by the president.

When a new president enters office, he typically appoints a new attorney general to lead the U.S. Justice Department. The president can also appoint new U.S. attorneys to lead the 94 offices of U.S. attorneys across the nation. 

The attorney general reports to the president. U.S. attorneys report to the attorney general. Assistant U.S. attorneys are hired by U.S. attorneys to work as employees of the district office.

In March 2016, when Democratic President Barack Obama was still in office, Knott was hired to work as an assistant U.S. attorney for North Carolina’s Eastern District. 

But Thomas G. Walker, who Obama appointed to lead the office, had resigned in that January. Knott was hired by acting U.S. Attorney John Bruce, who first joined the U.S. Attorney's Office as an assistant U.S. attorney in 1983 under President Ronald Reagan. 

Bruce worked as a federal prosecutor for many years including under George Holding, who was appointed by President George W. Bush to lead North Carolina’s Eastern District in 2006 and served until 2011. Holding, a Republican, later represented a Triangle-area district in Congress from 2013 to 2021. Holding referred to Bruce as his second-in-command.

Bruce addressed Knott’s employment in a statement to PolitiFact North Carolina, saying assistant U.S. attorneys are hired "without regard to party affiliation, under applicable federal regulations." 

"Brad Knott had applied for previous AUSA vacancies, and he was under consideration for a term AUSA position when (U.S. Attorney) Thomas Walker resigned in January 2016," Bruce said. "Brad's hiring to a term AUSA position was approved by me in January 2016 and he came on board in March 2016. I was never appointed by Obama or any other president."

After Republican Donald Trump became president in 2017, he appointed Robert Higdon Jr. as the U.S. attorney for North Carolina’s Eastern District. Higdon had served as a federal prosecutor under several administrations dating back to 1991.

Knott continued working under Higdon, grabbing the attention of local media in 2019. That year, the News & Observer wrote about Knott’s prosecution of a man who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for running a $10 million trafficking operation.

After Biden became president, Knott continued his work under Mike Easley Jr., a Democrat Biden appointed to replace Higdon as the U.S. attorney for North Carolina’s Eastern District. Easley is the son of former North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, a Democrat.

After Biden was elected, Knott says he started planning his exit from the U.S. attorney’s office. However, Knott said he didn’t want to abandon investigations that become major cases. So he stayed until November 2023.

Knott cited one of his final cases in a video ad that was released when he launched his campaign for Congress. In 2022, Knott helped secure a conviction and 50-year prison sentence for Jimmy Rouse of Sampson County, who had been accused of running an armed drug trafficking operation in eastern North Carolina.

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Contacted by PolitiFact NC, the Daughtry campaign didn’t provide evidence that Biden ever hired or appointed Knott. Daughtry’s campaign said it believes that it’s fair to refer to Knott as "Biden’s lawyer" because Knott has referred to himself as "a prosecutor under the Biden White House" while speaking at a local GOP event Jan. 23. 

At the event, candidates were asked to provide an example of a time they had to compromise with Democrats. Knott told the crowd that he had to "abide by" Biden administration policies while building cases against suspects he wanted to prosecute.

PolitiFact NC shared with the Daughtry campaign information it had learned about assistant U.S. attorneys — and the multiple degrees of separation between assistant U.S. attorneys and the president.

The Daughtry campaign didn’t specifically rebut PolitiFact NC’s findings on the distance between the president and assistant U.S. attorneys on the government’s organizational chart. It did, however, focus on Knott’s career choices. 

No "true conservative" would "stand idly by" as other federal prosecutors brought charges against Trump, Daughtry spokesman Stefan Mychajliw said in an email. 

Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, has charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss and with illegally retaining classified documents. 

"Brad Knott chose to work for the Biden administration and collect a paycheck," Mychajliw said. "He could have quit at any time. He chose money over principles."

Knott’s campaign said Daughtry is leaping to false conclusions about Knott’s political beliefs and the nature of his job.

It’s common for assistant U.S. attorneys to work under leaders of the opposite party, according to former assistant U.S. attorneys who spoke with PolitiFact. The trend has also been observed by Harvard Law School, which says on its website that there’s "a long history of AUSAs serving for many years, across multiple administrations, effectively insulated from partisan politics."

Former U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., was an assistant U.S. attorney during the Clinton administration before running for Congress. Gowdy rose to prominence by leading the U.S. House of Representatives’ investigation into the 2012 Benghazi attack in Libya, which led to the deaths of four Americans and heavy scrutiny of former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.

In a telephone interview, Gowdy said he interviewed for positions in Colorado and New York before being hired in South Carolina in 1994 by U.S. Attorney Pete Strom, a Democrat who had been appointed by Janet Reno, an attorney general appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

"I never met Bill Clinton in my life. To this day, I have not met Bill Clinton. I never met Janet Reno," said Gowdy, who now hosts "Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy" on the Fox News cable network. 

"I couldn't tell you the political orthodoxy of a single one of my office mates. Not a one," Gowdy said in a phone interview. "Politics had nothing to do with what we did."

Nick Akerman, former prosecutor during the Watergate scandal and assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, had a similar experience. He said federal prosecutors are typically hired based on merit.

"People are not hired in that job because of their political beliefs or background," Akerman said in a telephone interview. "It couldn't have been more irrelevant to what I did, and to what other people did. People were hired for their competence and their legal ability."

Gowdy noted that federal prosecutors cannot bring charges against anyone on their own. Law enforcement agencies — from the FBI to local sheriff’s offices — are responsible for investigating criminal activity and arresting suspects. Federal prosecutors can determine who to prosecute only after those agencies refer cases.

Politically appointed U.S. attorneys have discretion over the resources in their office, Gowdy said. They could choose to focus on, say, environmental crimes, or maybe focus on federal drug cases rather than state-level drug cases, Gowdy said.

But most prosecutions are not politically motivated, Gowdy said.  

Steven Wasserman, president of the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys, agreed.

"I can tell you in no uncertain terms that AUSAs are career civil servants that do not work for the White House," Wasserman said in a telephone interview. 

Suggesting that an assistant U.S. attorney works for the president would be "as ridiculous" as saying that "a soldier who happened to serve during a particular president's administration is that president’s soldier," Wasserman said.

Daughtry’s campaign ad says "Brad Knott was a lawyer for Joe Biden."

Biden has appointed leaders to the U.S. Justice Department and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina that could indirectly influence Knott’s work — something Knott acknowledged in a recent candidate forum.

However, Daughtry’s campaign ad gives a misleading impression that Knott worked directly for Biden, which isn’t the case. Knott wasn’t hired by Biden. Knott wasn’t appointed by Biden. And Knott didn’t report directly to Biden, either.

He was hired as an employee of the federal government before Biden became president — in a role that’s considered apolitical.

We rate Daughtry’s statement False.